Side Effects

First Hit:  An outstanding film; finely crafted with excellent performances.

I cannot say enough about this film because the drama setup and then to have it evolve into a complex crime thriller was fantastic.

I was fully drawn in by the story but it was the fine acting by Jude Law (as Dr. Jonathan Banks), Rooney Mara (as Emily Taylor) while being outstandingly supported by Catherine Zeta-Jones (as Dr. Victoria Siebert) and Channing Tatum (as Martin Taylor).

The film subtly draws you in to feel a deep sadness for Emily and Martin as they attempt to put their lives back together after he comes out of prison for insider trading. The descriptions of, and watching Emily experience her depression were extraordinary – I completely believed her.

What made this film work was the wonderful writing and the amazing direction by Steven Soderbergh. This film explores depression, the use of pharmaceuticals to treat depression, the law and how it works with double jeopardy and mental health, pharmaceutical companies, relationships, and greed encased in a whole and complete film.

Mara was unbelievably great and I bought the story hook line and sinker. Her performance in this film will set her apart from a small group of very good actresses into greatness. Law was outstanding. His strength as a man and openness as a human being were all exposed as he knew something was up and wasn’t going to stop trying to figure out what the real story was. Zeta-Jones in a secondary but critical/pivotal role was very very good. Tatum was physically only in the first part of the film but his presence set up the rest of the film and therefore he’s part of the whole film. Scott Z. Burns wrote a sublime script. It was interesting, full of twists but not for effect, they were there to move the story forward and drive to a very interesting end. Soderbergh directed this film with perfection - cannot say anything more - perfect.

Overall:  This is a really great film.

Contagion

First Hit: Interesting, scary, overcomplicated stories and created questions of realism.

What would happen if a new disease came to this world that had a high R 0 factor (R Naught). Although it was explained as a primary part of the film, it wasn’t reinforced enough throughout the film for me to understand the some of the dialogue they used later.

From what I understood a high R Naught means that for every one person who dies multiple more will die. Anyway this was just one of the confusing things in this film. Then I kept having questions while the celluloid rolled. If they created a contagious area, sealed it off a whole city, who would man the electric power stations? Who controls all the other social utilities if the city (Chicago) is dying from a disease?

And although the film-makers showed a society degenerating by having people breaking into banks, grocery stores, and pharmacies; I kept wondering who’s running the electrical grid. Anyway, outside of the problems in this film because it compromised the way society would breakdown with this disease, it did bring up great questions about what would happen if a devastating disease struck the world.

Beth (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) is ground zero for this disease (we discover this at the end of the film). She stops on her way home and has a quickie with an ex-boyfriend (why was this important?), comes home to her husband Mitch (played by Matt Damon), who ends up being immune to the disease but her son isn’t and both the son and wife die.

The film includes the involvement of the WHO and a bunch of other agencies which lets us know that this is important and out of control. The way the WHO and the US Government methodically find a cure and plan how to immunize a lot of people was interesting, but overall this film tried to make drama in too many places which dissipated the energy of the film. I would have rather stayed with just a few of the people and not try to give us so much about so many.

One of the opening scenes when they cut Beth’s scull open to analyze her death, I found myself cringing but ready for a film that would be more focused, it fell off the table and became a different film from there.

Paltrow has a small but critical part because she is ground zero. Damon was good as the caring father. Marion Cotillard as Dr. Orantes was very good and probably did the best acting in this film. Jude Law was very good at playing a blogger named Alan Krumwiede as someone who was skeptical of the government’s action on the disease but he was worse in his lying to his public. Laurence Fishburne was OK as Dr. Cheever and I really thought the story was overplayed when he gave his wife a heads up to leave Chicago. There were lots of other actors but this film didn’t require it and in fact dissipated its energy. Scott Z. Burns wrote the script and made it too complicated by adding lots of strong parts. Steven Soderbergh directed this film and, to me, it needed simplification in some areas to create a more powerful effect.

Overall: This was a good film but too many stories with big time actors dissipated the strength of the idea.